Update January 10, 2025 -- A third suspect has been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting in the murder of Darron Willie Singleton, Jr. On Thursday January 9, 2025, 45-year-old Valena Marie Gonzales of San Diego was apprehended by the San Diego Regional Fugitive Task Force near Valley Road and Rio Drive in San Diego. She has been booked into custody at Las Colinas Detention Facility.
East County News Service
January 8, 2025 (Lemon Grove) – The Sheriff’s office today announced the arrest of two men suspected in the murder of 23-year-old Darron Willie Singleton, Jr.
On Sept. 18 around 10:55 p.m., deputies responded to reports of gunfire and found Singleton suffering gunshot wounds to the torse in the 2200 block of Dain Street in Lemon Grove. Despite lifesaving efforts by San Miguel Fire Department personnel and Sheriff’s deputies, Singleton died at the scene.
“Months of intensive investigation led to the arrests of two individuals believed to be involved in this heinous crime,” says Lieutenant Michael Krugh.
Yesterday, Richard Charles Lee, 47, of San Diego, was apprehended in San Diego. Additionally, 44-year-old Reality Grayson of Temecula was arrested Temecula. Both suspects have been booked into custody at the San Diego Central Jail on charges related to the murder of Darron Willie Singleton Jr.
The San Diego Sheriff's Office extends its gratitude for the collaborative efforts of the San Diego Police Department, the Riverside Sheriff's Department, and the San Diego Regional Fugitive Task Force for their support in executing the arrests.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Homicide Unit at (858) 285-6330/after hours at (858) 868-3200. You can remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
East County News Service
Photos courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol
January 25, 2025 (Jacumba Hot Springs, CA) – Two hikers in the Jacumba Wilderness were robbed and attacked, with one man shot by “suspected Mexican cartel terrorists,” according to a press release issued by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
According to the CPB, agents from the El Centro sector were dispatched following a 911 call reporting that a man had been shot and needed assistance. The agents found a group of hikers about 1,000 feet north of the international border in the Jacumba Wilderness, which is near the San Diego County and Imperial County line. The hikers reportedly stated that two of the hikers, an American and a Canadian, were ordered by armed men to approach.
When the hikers refused, “the assailants fired a volley of shots toward the hikers, striking one victim in the leg. The assailants advanced on the downed hiker and his Canadian companion, robbing them of their cell phones and backpacks,” the release states.
At 12:08 p.m. Mountain Disrupt Unit, Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), and Border Patrol Search Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) agents infiltrated to the area, locating the injured victim and stabilizing him.
Agents created a protective perimeter and extracted the victim via CBP Air and Marine Operations San Diego, according to the CPB.
According to Scott Lord business director with Mercy Air, "The victim was transferred to Mercy Air Ambulance and flown to Sharp Medical Center in San Diego for treatment." He indicated that this is the first incidence of a hiker shooting along the border locally that he is aware of, adding that he has friends who have hiked the Pacific Coast Trail from Mexico to Canada and never heard of anything like this.
BORTAC and BORSTAR agents maintained a secure perimeter and tracked the assailants back to the border where they returned to Mexico.
It is unclear why the CPB believes the attackers were cartel members, though cartels have long been involved in smuggling operations along the U.S.-Mexico border.
While unprovoked attacks on hikers locally are rare (ECM has never received any previous similar eport since our founding in 2008), cartel criminal activities have spilled over the border. including illicit drug activities and more. On January 21, San Diego Police announced arrest of dozens of individual suspected of criminal activities affiliated with Mexican Mafia, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. The suspects are largely street gang members who “took orders from cartel bosses operating in state prison and preyed on business owners by forcing mafia-style taxes,” District Attorney Summer Stephan said Tuesday at a news conference.
The hiker’s shooting comes days after President Donald Trump declared a border emergency designating Mexican drug cartels and other Latin American criminal groups as terrorist organizations. Trump's order states that these groups "threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere." He has threatened to send U.S. special forces commando into Mexico to go after cartels.
El Centro Sector Chief Gregory Bovino states, “The wounded hiker is an ‘I told you so moment’ highlighting the importance of adequate infrastructure the Border Patrol has been championing for years now.” He predicts, “Suspected cartel terrorists, however, are fixing to learn this type of conduct will be an end game type of activity here in the Premier Sector. All threats, anywhere, or at any time throughout this sector will be addressed vigorously.”
Jacumba Hikers issued a statement on Facebook indicating that while this incident did not involve their hiking group,"Due to this incident, we have decided to cancel the upcoming hike and avoid hiking near the border at this time."
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the patient was transported on Reach Air Ambulance, based on a Border Patrol press release. However Mercy Air has contacted us to clarify that their company provided the transport.
East County News Service
Image: Creative Commons via Bing
January 23, 2025 (San Diego) - A woman, along with an incarcerated person, have been arrested on suspicion of mailing drug-laced letters to a San Diego County jail, says Sergeant Aaron Brooks with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Detention Investigations Unit.
Deputies assigned to the Sheriff's Mail Processing Center intercepted fictitious legal mail intended for Aaron Beek, 45, who is in custody at the George Bailey Detention Facility in Otay Mesa. Upon closer inspection, deputies located materials they believed to be soaked with narcotics.
The Sheriff's Detention Investigations Unit (DIU) began a criminal investigation, which identified Jacqueline Richardson, 44, as responsible for mailing the packages containing the drugs to Beek at the George Bailey Detention Facility.
On January 16, DIU Detectives served a search warrant at Richardson's home in San Diego. During the search, detectives found evidence related to the mail case and additional narcotics such as powdered fentanyl, M30 fentanyl pills and methamphetamine.
Richardson was arrested on numerous charges, including sending a controlled substance into jail and possession of a controlled substance. She was booked into the Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility in Santee.
Beek, who remains in Sheriff's custody, was rearrested on criminal charges related to sending a controlled substance into jail.
Sending a controlled substance into a jail is a felony with a penalty of up to six years in custody.
East County News Service
January 10, 2025 (San Diego County) – In December, a judge ordered a transient release to a temporary location in San Diego County for Alvin Quarles, a sexually violent predator (SVP). Now Supervisor Joel Anderson has written a letter to Superior Court Judge Marian Gaston urging her to block the release. Anderson has also launched a petition and is seeking signatures from constituents opposed to Quarles’ release.
Quarles has been dubbed the “bolder than most” rapist for a series of sexual assaults in the 1980s committed at knife point, sometimes with the victim’s husband or boyfriend forced to watch
An audit last year found that four percent of SVPs in the state’s conditional release program reoffended, while 19% of SVPs not in the program reoffended.
“In light of the numerous heinous offenses committed by SVPs, transient releases that would prevent an effective oversight process to track and monitor SVPs should be rejected by the courts,” says Anderson, who has also objected to the high number of SVPs released into East County compared to urban and coastal areas in the county.
Several prior attempts to place Quarles into housing supervised by Liberty Healthcare failed, leading to the transient release plan. Quarles served time in state prison and later, a state hospital, before being deemed suited for release under the conditional release program.
By Miriam Raftery
January 21, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Hours after being sworn into office in the Capitol Rotunda, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order protecting all of the nearly 1,600 people accused or convicted of crimes stemming from the Capitol attack four years earlier. On January 6, 2021, the violent mob assaulted and injured 140 police officers, forcing terrified lawmakers to flee or hide while the mob tried to halt the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump’s order issued a blanket pardon for nearly all of the insurrectionists, erasing their felony records and freeing all who were serving prison sentences, even those convicted of attacking police officers or armed with weapons including firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive “Trump” billboard, “Trump” flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device.
In addition, he commuted sentences for 14 members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, including the groups’ leaders, Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio, who were serving 18- and 22- year sentences for their roles in organizing the attacks. Both men are now free.
Trump also directed his Attorney General to drop all remaining charges against individuals accused of crimes related to the January 6 Capitol attack, but whose cases had not yet gone to trial.
Trump mischaracterized those imprisoned as “hostages,” when in fact all were provided with due process and were convicted by juries of their peers of serious crimes, including violent assaults documented on TV and security videos.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray has called Proud Boys and Oath Keepers “violent extremists” who committed “domestic terrorism” in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some Capitol attackers threatened to kill members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence, even erecting a gallows outside. They also sought to stop certification of electoral college votes, after Trump convinced his followers that the election had been stolen from him. Yet 62 judges, some appointed by Trump, all found no evidence of fraudulent election results.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cailf.), who was House leader during the attack, called Trump’s actions “shameful” and “a betrayal of police officers who put their lives on the line to stop an attempt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power,” NBC News reports.
Trump’s executive order states that it “ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national healing.
But ABC news reports that some Department of Justice officials have voiced alarm over the prospect of violent convicted offenders going free—potentially able to retaliate with violence against prosecutors, judges or witnesses.